Interim Regional President, Commercial Markets — Retention and Delivery

Keeping customers without paying them to stay

Discounting is the fastest retention tool and the most expensive. It works this quarter, teaches customers to ask again next quarter, and slowly erodes the economics it was meant to protect. The Interim Regional President, Commercial Markets, reporting to the Board Commercial Committee, is appointed to build retention on other foundations: the quality of service, the fit of the proposition and the customer's reasons for staying.

Executive authority over the commercial region

The seat carries executive authority for 18 months. You will agree which commercial decisions are held locally and at what threshold, and decide what customer and margin evidence a retention offer, a marketing budget or a service investment must bring. Inherited commercial commitments stay only if you confirm them. You can refuse a scheme that leaves its cost to a team that never signed up to it, and a value case that assumes customers will respond, glosses over what it depends on or ignores the downside. You approve how the commercial region's leadership is organised and how disputes rise, settle disagreements with market leaders before money is committed, and decide how often the board hears about progress, exceptions and choices still open. Discount authority sits inside that remit, and you decide who holds it.

What eighteen months should show

Inside the first ninety days, retention economics, the authority to discount and the customer evidence behind both should be agreed with the Board Commercial Committee. Around month nine retention offers should be reviewed against the agreed economics, discount-led retention narrowed, and alternative propositions developed under accountable leaders. By month 18 retention should be managed through service and proposition levers rather than price, with the economics evidenced and commercial exceptions closed.

A commercial leader with the evidence to say no

You have made commercial choices in telecommunications and technology where hesitation had a countable price, and you can show evidence redirecting sales teams, budgets and leadership time. That record was built in businesses of $510 million or more in revenue, at least 1,200 people and four or more countries. The committee weighs digital transformation, joint ventures and turnaround. Commercial economics at level 4 leads; channel partnerships, revenue architecture and the management of the board and stakeholders are each expected at level 3. You can point to a retention scheme or other popular commitment you closed, why the evidence demanded it and what the released budget achieved.

A retention case before the decision

Selection takes three weeks. You start in week one with a confidential exchange over video with the Board Commercial Committee. In week two the Regional President hands you a retention case: what would you offer a departing customer instead of a discount? Week three is an in-person discussion with the executive committee. A written reply follows each stage within 3 working days.